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Recording on the Road: The W Seattle Launches Their Innovative “Sound Suite”

The Sound Studio for rent at the W Seattle Hotel is completely soundproofed. Photo courtesy the W Seattle.

By Jenny Peters

Touring with your band and need a place to practice? Traveling with your trusty guitar in hand and just want to noodle away while hanging out in your hotel? Or maybe you are a songwriter-singer who has had a spark of genius on the road and needs to lay down a track right when the inspiration strikes?

An edgy design and Coca-Cola motifs add to the look of the W Seattle Sound Studio suite. Photo courtesy the W Seattle.

Until now, you and all those other professional musicians and amateurs alike who visited Seattle had to find a recording studio to make that magic happen; you certainly couldn’t just let it all hang out in your hotel room, without having a bunch of irate fellow travelers threatening murder if you didn’t quiet down.

All that changed in April 2017, when the W Seattle Hotel launched their innovative “Sound Suite,” the first of its kind in North America, with a big bash that featured performances by singer-songwriter and Seattle native Jaymes Young, as well as Chris Staples and Lemolo’s Meagan Grandall. The party spilled all over the lobby area known as the Living Room and into Trace, the hotel’s restaurant helmed by Executive Chef Steven Ariel, who serves up a fantastic pulled pork slider as part of his localvore menu.

The recording booth in the Sound Suite at the W Seattle has a great city view. Photo courtesy the W Seattle.

The Sound Suite, which is also funded (and branded) via a Coca-Cola partnership, features a completely soundproof space including a lounge area and a recording booth, along with state-of-the-art recording equipment outfitted by Native Instruments. The W Hotel Seattle version is the second in the world, followed by the original opened in the W Bali – Seminyak last year.

Part of the idea was to create a space that was functional for what musicians need, the right kind of space, the right kind of gear,” explains DJ White Shadow, Lady Gaga’s record producer and the man who came up with the idea for the Sound Suites.

“Because creativity happens whenever, do you know what I mean? So being able to just walk down the hall and be in a studio and create something, I thought that was a really cool thing for a brand to offer artists and a really cool thing for artists to utilize in a hotel.”

Time to make as much noise as you want in a hotel, at the soundproofed W Seattle Sound Studio on the hotel’s 25th floor. Photo courtesy the W Seattle.

For the W Seattle, he outfitted the recording suite with a Komplete Kontrol S-Series state-of-the-art control keyboard, the Maschine production system and the Traktor Kontrol S8 all-in-one DJ system. Shure audio provided new SHR440 headphones, X2u microphones, KSM32/SL microphone condensers and BETA®181 microphone, helping to create the ultimate recording experience.

“Part of the idea was to create a space that was functional for what musicians need, the right kind of space, the right kind of gear,” he adds. “It’s about creating something that has the ability to function in a lot of different capacities in the hotel. It’s a recording studio, but you want to have a bachelor party in it or ten guys in for a loud Super Bowl party, go for it. I want to have the space available in every W Hotel if we can. We’ll have two more coming this summer, at the W Hollywood and the W Barcelona.”

For pricing, guests can contact the W Hotel Seattle; the Sound Suite is available to both professional music artists and other hotel guests as of April 13, 2017.